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• Antithesis – verify your system’s correctness without human review or traditional integration tests – and avoid bugs or outages.

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In this special “ask me anything” episode of Pragmatic Engineer podcast, I am in the hot seat facing questions sent in by subscribers that are read out by guest Volodymyr Giginiak, CTO and cofounder of Wordsmith AI, a legal tech startup (note: I’m an investor).

I tackle your questions on the software industry, AI, hiring, engineering organizations, career growth, the business model of the Pragmatic Engineer, and more. We also discuss where software engineering is headed, and I offer advice on some specific situations. Thanks to everyone who sent questions!

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Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:56 From Uber to writing

09:22 AI-native SDLC

14:00 AI and hiring

19:06 Engineers currently thriving

22:18 Junior roles

24:44 Meta’s war mode

27:54 AI at Big Tech vs. startups

36:46 Tech debt

41:36 Types of engineering managers

44:40 Measuring AI productivity

48:30 The value of CS degrees

50:53 AI at Pragmatic Engineer

56:09 Future-proofing your career

1:01:36 The EU job market

1:03:55 Making money as a creator

1:08:20 What’s next for The Pragmatic Engineer

1:09:27 Bunq and Pollen

1:13:38 Spotting trends

1:14:33 Book updates

1:15:20 Favorite books & tech products

1:17:13 What won’t change in engineering

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The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:

• State of the software engineering job market in 2026

• The impact of AI on software engineers in 2026: key trends. 

• How 10 tech companies choose the next generation of dev tools 

• The reality of tech interviews

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Production and marketing by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://penname.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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